


Stuff It

by Merfilly



Category: DCU, DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Multi, New Year's Resolutions, Resurrection, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-07
Updated: 2009-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-26 05:45:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/279387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oliver's Death and Life, with all the ones he touches</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stuff It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [irismustang](https://archiveofourown.org/users/irismustang/gifts).



> Yuletide Import Version: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1642187

//Ollie, old boy, how do you manage to stuff it up so bad, every time?// He stared again at Connor, then looked at Eddie. "You knew..." His fist clenched, but something in Eddie's eyes backed him down from the punch he wanted to throw.

"I wanted to know my father."

Ollie looked the boy over again, seeing the hints of Sandra in him, then back at Eddie. "Keep your eyes on him, then. I've got shit to do."

He stormed off, and Eddie knew they would follow. Connor, if anything, was as stubborn as his old man.

`~`~`~`~`

_"I won't make orphans."_

The words still haunted Dinah, nearly five years later, and rang with painful poignancy as she looked at the young man sitting in her home. She handed him the photo of her and Hal and Ollie, her throat tight and tears threatening. She would not cry, could not cry. Not in front of this stranger, this stranger who was the son of the man she still loved, despite it all.

_"I won't make orphans."_

But Ollie had. Ollie had made three orphans by dying as he had. This young man, who said his name was Connor Hawke was one, and the most surprising. His existence had brought back so many old pains and regrets. Dinah knew how to watch over Oliver's sons. Connor would be no different.

Once Connor left her home, before she gave in to the grief and pain, Dinah took down a piece of paper and a good pen. Shado needed to be told, so that she was aware her son's father had passed on. Then she would call Roy, the son she knew, and loved, best.

`~`~`~`~`

Shado put the letter away. There were complicated ties between her and the Black Canary, the woman she knew better as Dinah Lance. Oliver Queen had loved the small American, but it was she, Shado, who had borne him a son.

Now, however, it seemed there was another son. This Connor Hawke would need to be watched most carefully, as Dinah Lance said in her letter, for the honor of Oliver Queen's memory. She looked over to where Robert was playing quietly, and carefully did not focus on her choice to keep Oliver from knowing the boy. It was for the best that way.

`~`~`~`~`

Roy held the cup of coffee in his hands, sitting with Dinah. She was so damned beautiful even in her pain. No, not even, but because of it. She just had the quiet serenity he'd gotten used to, magnified by her efforts not to cry through the memorial.

"Connor told you?" he asked softly, still trying to figure out how that worked. Dinah was League, big shot and all.

Except she wasn't, not anymore.

"Yes." She looked up at Roy then. "Did you know?"

Roy bit back the vicious words he wanted to use; things had been bad there at the end between him and Ollie. Seeing his surrogate dad hell-bent on getting himself killed, and the half-grown kid...well, one thing it left him knowing. Blood or not, Ollie was still a shitty father.

"Figured it out, got it confirmed."

Then he had to put his mug down, as she began to cry, and he needed to hold her. The world just wasn't right for him if Dinah was crying. Inside, he cursed Ollie again, for having put his mark on this woman so deeply.

`~`~`~`~`

The world grew dark and then cold. The end times had come, all over the world. Heroes rushed to do all that they could, trying to stave off death and panic, as long as they could, buying time for someone to save them. Someone, it turned out, that had nearly destroyed them all not so long before.

But, before Hal Jordan could save the solar system, he first had to rectify a mistake he had made. He could not perform a true resurrection, but he could gather what remained of the man in its microscopic quantities. He could shape the body and the mind to the memories he carried of the man. Then he could steal a time-shard copy of the man, jerking him from that infamous road trip, when both of them had been so young and naive about too many things.

"Don't stuff this one up, Ollie," the former pilot told the man, before setting him down in his native Star City, mind mostly blank. It would take time, but eventually, Green Arrow would rise up out of the ashes. Hal Jordan was satisfied, and he channeled all the energy he still had into one final oath...the world survived, but Hal was no more, at least for now.

`~`~`~`~`

The stringy blonde hair fell into his face again, as his hands worked on making the new arrow. His fingers faltered as he pulled the red cord around the shaft where it joined the bottle. Red...red like soft, sweat-damp hair, sticking up at odd angles when the yellow cap came away...the man shook away the vision, wondering why his chest hurt at the thought, wondering again who he was, and why he made these arrows effortlessly, when by all rights they shouldn't even work.

`~`~`~`~`

It was seeing the knife at her throat. Her hair wasn't black, but that hardly mattered. The knife, a woman in fear and pain, and all he knew was the song of the bow.

The police later had reason to wonder if their archer was back for good, while the would be rapist begged to stay in jail a long time.

`~`~`~`~`

His moves were silent, and none truly saw him save those he attacked. They spoke of a ghost, a haunting spirit of vengeance with only instinct guiding the arrows. The victims he saved were rarely able to thank him before he would be gone.

The exception was a young Japanese woman, her son in a sling on her hip, who said he stared at her for a long minute before bowing from the waist to her. Only then did he vanish.

`~`~`~`~`

Word had spread, people had come looking, and they had saved the world again. Dinah was a mass of pain and relief. Roy was the same wary cat he had been since that night Ollie had thrown him out. Bruce didn't want to admit he was himself all that much, and the Demon...well, it was Etrigan.

But there was Connor, looking more filled out, and eager to see him in a way no one else could be. Ollie only had a few lines of history with his son, and that needed remedied, while the pages he had written with the others needed time to open back up away from the shock.

"Let's see about getting to know each other now, son." There'd be time later for them, time to learn what Shado had done with their son, time to renew old friendships. They'd all understand. They knew him better than he knew himself, after all.

`~`~`~`~`

"Just don't stuff it up this time, Ollie," the Spectre whispered, as he watched his one-time friend start all over.


End file.
